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This systematic literature review aims to elaborate on the research progress and features of information source preferences to help other researchers attain a more comprehensive understanding of the field.

Following a systematic review protocol, 139 research articles from 11 academic databases were analyzed.

Overall, five separate results were obtained: first, information source horizon theory is the main theoretical foundation of information source preferences research, while other theories have been applied less. Second, information source preference research has strong context sensitivity and involves health, work, consumption, learning, survival and development and emergencies. Third, preference criteria can be summarized into three categories: information characteristics, user characteristics, needs characteristics and corresponding specific criteria. Fourth, information source preferences are influenced by both internal and external factors, including five specific aspects, namely demographics, the user's cognition, the user's affection, capital and contextual factors. Fifth, this field is dominated by quantitative methods and an information horizon mapping method could be applied more.

This study is the first to reveal the general picture of information source preferences. It also elaborates on the characteristics of this field and presents potential development directions.

To reveal the emotions and information needs expressed by Chinese parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in an online forum, and their relationship.

The 10,062 data were from “Yi Lin”, China’s largest online forum for ASD. Open coding identified parents’ emotions and information needs, and a chi-squared test explored the correlation.

First, parents’ emotions were categorized into four themes: emotions about coping with their child’s care, emotions about the parents’ own behavior, emotions about social support with other parents and emotions about anticipating the future. Parents’ overall emotions were negative (72.47%), while the tendency of emotions varied among the four themes. Second, five information needs topics were expressed: intervention and training of ASD, parenting experiences, schooling issues, social interaction and support and future development. Different information needs topics contained different themes of emotions. Third, the tendency of emotions and expression of information needs were significantly correlated. Negative emotions had a statistically significant correlation in expression of information needs.

This study reveals the relationship between the emotions and information needs expressed by parents of children with ASD. The ASD forum could develop emotional support modules and functions for parents and facilitate emotional communication between parents.

This study aims to explore the information needs of Chinese parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and how these needs evolve as their children develop.

This study collated 17,122 questions regarding raising children with ASD via the Yi Lin website until November 2021.

The information needs of parents of children with ASD were classified into two categories: 1) Cognition-motivation: related to children with ASD; and 2) Affection-motivation: related to their parents. Child development causes the adaptation of information needs of these parents. Within the first three years, nine different topics of these parents' information needs were identified. Major information needs at this stage are as follows: intervention content, intervention methods and pre-diagnosis questions. During the ages of three to six years, there were 13 topics of information needs for parents, focusing on three areas: intervention content, intervention methods and diagnosis and examination. There are eight topics of information needs post six years. Parents are more concerned with the three topics of intervention content, life planning and intervention methods.

This novel study indicates the complex and changing information needs of parents of children with ASD in China. It may enhance the understanding of the information needs of these parents at theoretical and practical levels, provide support for them to understand their own information needs and provide a reference for relevant government and social organisations to provide targeted information services for them.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-04-2022-0247

This systematic literature review aims to elaborate the research progress of information practices to help other researchers attain a more holistic and comprehensive understanding of the field.

Following a systematic review protocol, 123 research articles from nine academic databases were included in the analysis.

Four separate results can be outlined. First, practice theory, social constructionist theory and activity theory are often used as the theoretical basis for the study of information practices. Second, people will engage in specific information practice activities in different external and internal contexts. The external contexts include social and needs contexts. The internal contexts include information source horizons, user's affection and user's cognition. Third, the existing information practice models can be divided into static and dynamic types. These models mainly reflected activities and influencing factors of information practices. Fourth, qualitative methods were the most used in information practice research.

The field of information practices is a vast, expanding research field. This research will focus only on a specific section, namely concepts, activities, contexts and models. Researchers could contribute to exploring the concepts, components and mechanisms of information practices by combining theories from various disciplines, such as sociology and behavioral science.

This is the first study to reveal the general picture of information practices. It also elaborates the characteristics of people's information practices and shows the potential development direction for future research.

Gas pipelines are facing serious risk because of the factors such as long service life, complex working condition and most importantly, corrosion. As one of the main failure reasons of gas pipeline, corrosion poses a great threat to its stable operation. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the reliability of gas pipelines with corrosion defect. This paper uses the corresponding methods to predict the residual strength and residual life of pipelines.

In this paper, ASME-B31G revised criteria and finite element numerical analysis software are used to analyze the reliability of a special dangerous section of a gas gathering pipeline, and the failure pressure and stress concentration of the pipeline under three failure criteria are obtained. Furthermore, combined with the predicted corrosion rate of the pipeline, the residual service life of the pipeline is calculated.

This paper verifies the feasibility of ASME-B31G revised criteria and finite element numerical analysis methods for reliability analysis of gas pipelines with corrosion defect. According to the calculation results, the maximum safe internal pressure of the pipeline is 9.53 Mpa, and the residual life of the pipeline under the current operating pressure is 38.41 years, meeting the requirements of safe and reliable operation.

The analysis methods and analysis results provide reference basis for the reliability analysis of corroded pipelines, which is of great practical engineering value for the safe and stable operation of natural gas pipelines.

Electrostatic monitoring technology is a useful tool for monitoring and detecting component faults and degradation, which is necessary for engine health management. This paper aims to carry out online monitoring experiments of turbo-shaft engine to contribute to the practical application of electrostatic sensor in aero-engine.

Combined with the time and frequency domain methods of signal processing, the authors analyze the electrostatic signal from the short timescale and the long timescale.

The short timescale analysis verifies that electrostatic sensor is sensitive to the additional increased charged particles caused by abnormal conditions, which makes this technology to monitor typical failures in aero-engine gas path. The long scale analysis verifies the electrostatic sensor has the ability to monitor the degradation of the engine gas path performance, and water washing has a great impact on the electrostatic signal. The spectrum of the electrostatic signal contains not only the motion information of the charged particles but also the rotating speed information of the free turbine.

The findings in this article prove the effectiveness of electrostatic monitoring and contribute to the application of this technology to aero-engine.

The research in this paper would be the foundation to achieve the application of the technology in aero-engine.

Shanghai is currently faced with a rapid increase in the ageing population and demand for elderly homes. Continuing care retirement community (CCRC) has been emerging as a high-end alternative to offer specialised accommodation to the elderly in major cities. Since the first development in 2008, the industry is now still at the infancy stage. This study aims to examine the investment barriers hindering the supply and demand of CCRCs with an aim to recommend practical and senior housing policy measures to facilitate CCRC developments.

Multiple-case study method was used to confirm whether the literature findings on investment barriers apply to the context of Shanghai. Four representative CCRC development cases in Shanghai were examined, in which qualitative data were collected from interviews with experienced CCRC development managers and quantitative data from a questionnaire survey of the CCRC residents.

Operation management experience, financial risks and government support policy were found to be the main supply barriers. Chinese traditional family-oriented culture and affordability were not the main demand barriers of CCRCs in Shanghai. Poor quality of services and living environment were identified as the main barriers suppressing the demand for CCRC.

Although common trends and views can be drawn from the representative cases in Shanghai to provide valid results, further research should be conducted on other major cities in China so that the results can be widely applied.

Successful CCRC investment strategy should focus on partnering with experienced professional eldercare management companies, provisions of high-quality medical professionals and trained care personnel and delivery of flexible care service, along with intensive capital flows for land, construction and operating costs.

Additional senior housing policy support should be established to promote the CCRC supply to address the ageing needs, particularly granting lands for CCRC developments at Tiers 1 and 2 major cities where the land cost is high.

This research’s practical and policy measures can be applied to enable and promote CCRC developments in Shanghai, thus benefitting both housing investors and the government. The findings also form a baseline for CCRC developments in other major cities.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the formation and growth mechanism of bulk Cu₆Sn₅ intermetallic compounds, selecting Sn‐Ag‐Cu‐Ce solders as specimens.

In order to further enhance the properties of SnAgCu solder, trace amount of rare earth Ce was selected as alloying addition into the alloy; in previous investigations, the enhancements include better wettability, physical properties, creep strength and tensile strength. In this paper, the microstructure of Sn‐Ag‐Cu‐Ce soldered joints and its interfacial intermetallic compounds were investigated. Moreover, different morphologies of Cu₆Sn₅ IMCs were enumerated and described, and Ostwald ripening theory was employed to interpret the formation mechanism of bulk Cu₆Sn₅ IMCs.

In addition, based on finite element simulation, it is found that the von Mises stress concentrate around the bulk Cu₆Sn₅ IMCs inside the Sn‐Ag‐Cu‐Ce soldered joints after three thermal cycling loading (−55‐125°C). From the stress distribution, the failure site was predicted to fracture near the bulk Cu₆Sn₅ IMCs interface. This coincides with the experimental findings significantly.

The results presented in this paper may provide a theory guide for developing novel lead‐free solders as well as reliability investigation of lead‐free soldered joints.

The nature of the relationship between the Arabs and China in its historical and current dimensions raises the issue of compatibility and coexistence and the possibility of its continuity among nations and cultures. During the fifteenth-century-period, in which Arab–Chinese relations developed, a model of coexistence and harmony between the two civilizations and cultures emerged, which is rare to find in the history of relations between societies and countries. In this chapter, the researchers attempt to return to history to discuss the forms of the development of peaceful relations between China and Arab societies, and the cultural and psychological motives that led to the normalization of political relations in a pattern of mutual respect and peaceful cooperation on many common issues, which still continue to affect positively the relations between China and the Arab world nowadays. The study found that the nature of the eastern mentality of both parties and the positive stereotypes that each side has about the other long time ago have contributed decisively to shaping these relations in the subsequent centuries.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the portfolio models of contained grey profit under uncertainty, and the results are applied to solve uncertain investment problem.

In investment problems, uncertainties may exist in model parameters and input data. For the investment problems contained grey profit and incomplete information about natural world state, according to the portfolio theory, the grey systems theory and the uncertainty decision theory, the paper puts forward portfolio models and the methods.

Traditional uncertainty decision is researched for incomplete information about natural world state, in reality, investment problems are not only uncertain state information, but income are uncertain.

Because the investment problems have been widely used in economic analysis, decision analysis and economic management, examples are provided at the end to verify its feasibility.

The paper successfully combined the portfolio theory, the gray system theory and uncertainty decision theory and new uncertainty investment decision-making models and methods are presented.